Another community opposes proposed medical marijuana store

August 2, 2010

First it was the neighbors near Eagle Square in Providence, now it’s the city council in Woonsocket. According to The Valley Breeze, the council president has drafted a resolution opposing the Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Dispensary which plans to locate in Woonsocket if it’s chosen by the Department of Health. Here’s a portion of the resolution-

the City of Woonsocket, being at the most northerly point of Rhode Island, is not conveniently located for patients throughout Rhode Island; and whereas, another of the criteria to be considered in the granting of a compassion center certificate is the wishes of the city or town where the dispensary would be located.

The city council plans to discuss the resolution tonight.

I’ve put a call out to John Ward, the council President, as well as Dennis Gentili, the point person for the medical marijuana retail store. Gentili was one of the medical marijuana applicants featured on this website.

It’s possible all of this work will be for nothing. With 15 applicants and only 3 slots, most applicants won’t get the go ahead from the Department of Health. We’ll know about their decision by September.

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update- I spoke to Dennis Gentili and he said the city council is jumping the gun. The Department of Health hasn’t given him a license to run the center, so he’s not going to worry about it until he knows for sure he can open a medical marijuana center. After that he says he’s happy to work with city council to make sure he meets all of the zoning regualtions and community concerns.

Gentili was astonished by the portion of the resolution that called Northern Rhode Island an inconvenient place to distribute medical marijuana.

I don’t understand that. Why can’t Northern Rhode Island service the Northern Rhode Island area?… I don’t think the city council realizes that right in the city of Woonsocket there are legal care givers who are at this present time growing medical marijuana for their patients. So wouldn’t it be wise to have a central location where it can be regulated?

Gentili says he doesn’t plan to attend the city council meeting tonight.